


Where You Lay

by ClaraxBarton



Series: Kinktober2019 [18]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Fucking Machine, Gen, Hysteria, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 17:02:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21080021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Steve is everything an Omega shouldn't be: scrappy, angry, sarcastic.So he gets sent to Dr. Barton for 'treatment'





	Where You Lay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawksonfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/gifts).

> Now beta read by the Amazing Ro!!!

* * *

* * *

“Stop fidgeting,” Pierce hissed, one of his claw-like hands lashing out and sinking into Steve’s knee.

Steve glared at the ground in front of him and made himself sit as still as a statue.

A heartbeat later, Pierce’s hand withdrew, and Steve sucked in shallow, shaky breath.

“It’s humiliating enough to be your chaperone at this… establishment,” Pierce continued in a low, violent whisper, “you could at least behave yourself and stop acting like such a feral  _ animal _ .”

Steve swallowed, forced the lump in his throat down.

But the words came out anyway.

“I thought the whole point of bringing me here was because I don’t behave,” he bit out.

Pierce’s hand lifted, and Steve turned, glared at him, chin raised and defiant and-

“Excuse me, gentlemen.”

The voice was deep and rich, and rolling with the slightest twang of an accent.

Pierce and Steve broke free of their glare and turned to face the owner of the voice.

Tall, broad-shouldered, tan and freckled and sandy-haired, the man looked like an Alpha, from his body to his posture to the tilt of his smirk.

But he wasn’t.

Steve could smell it - or rather, the  _ lack _ of it.

The man carried just the faintest hint of scent, a curl of something warm and soft - of  _ coffee _ . 

Steve sucked in a greedy breath, not caring how obvious it was that he was scenting the air for more.

Beside him, Pierce’s posture became even more painfully erect.

But the man - the  _ Beta _ \- just continued to smirk.

“Steve?” he said, bright eyes ignoring Pierce entirely.

“Yeah - uh, yes, sir,” Steve amended when Pierce’s fingers twitched.

“I’m Dr. Barton.” The man stepped forward and held out his hand.

Steve stared at it, completely bewildered.

Handshakes were for equals.

And Steve… Steve was an Omega - a pathetic, unmated, twenty-three year old Omega who did nothing but cause trouble, and who was an orphan and a ward of the state, and if anyone was  _ less _ of an equal to a respected, successful Beta, Steve was dying to meet them.

But Barton didn’t drop his hand, seemed perfectly content to just stand there and hold it out until Steve finally rose to his own feet and slipped his too-large, bony hand into Barton’s.

The other man’s fingers were warm, his palm calloused, and he gave just the smallest, softest squeeze before he released Steve’s hand.

“Let’s go back to the exam room, shall we?” Barton gestured towards a slightly open door at the end of the hall.

Steve swallowed hard, forced his shoulders back and jutted his chin out.

Barton’s lips twitched.

Pierce rose to his feet, and Barton’s attention was immediately on him, nearly-there smirk disappearing and turning into a scowl.

“You’ll have to wait out here,” Barton said to Pierce.

Pierce scoffed.

“I’m his chaperone. The state of New York has entrusted him to my care and-”

“And Judge Hill instructed you to bring him to me for treatment for the next six months. Treatment, not entertainment for you.”

The two men glared at each other for a long, tense, awful moment, but then Pierce sniffed, grimaced, and sat back down.

Barton stepped to the side and returned his attention to Steve, gesturing to the door again, keeping his arms open and visible and waiting for Steve to make the first move.

Steve strode down the hall and opened the door wider himself, stepped inside, and almost immediately turned and ran back out again.

“What the fuck is that?” he demanded when Barton stepped into the room and closed the door, shutting off Steve’s escape and simultaneously trapping Pierce in the hall. 

Barton sat down on a wooden rolling chair and adopted a casual, open, almost relaxed pose.

He looked at Steve with a similar expression.

“We’ll get to that,” he assured Steve, gesturing towards the… thing with a vague little wave before indicating a leather bench several feet away. “First, why don’t you have a seat and let’s talk about why you’re here.”

Steve scowled, but he did sit down.

“I’m here because I’m a menace,” he snapped.

Barton laughed.

“Sorry,” he immediately apologized. “I just… I hear that a lot.”

Steve frowned.

“You do?”

Barton nodded.

“Yep. Didn’t you know, Steve, unmated Omegas are  _ all _ menaces? Especially the ones who aren’t meek and malleable?”

Barton winked.

It felt… it felt too good to be real. It felt like a  _ trap _ , this powerful Beta sitting there and saying the things that Steve thought and felt. The things that no other Beta or Alpha or mated Omega or sterile Omega would ever say to him.

“Look, I’m not here to… make you into what they want,” Barton said, and he seemed so earnest, his blue eyes holding Steve’s gaze and his entire posture so open it was almost vulnerable.

“Then why am I here in the first place? Why did Judge Hill sentence me to… this?” Steve couldn’t help but look at the  _ thing _ again.

“It’s not a punishment,” Barton insisted. “This is treatment. This is… Hill sent you here because she recognized the symptoms, is all.”

“Symptoms?”

“Hysteria, Steve. You have all the classic symptoms.”

Steve felt his jaw lock, and he glared at the Beta. Of course. Of course this was all too good to be true. Of course he would say the words Steve wanted to hear, and  _ then _ -

“Hysteria is bullshit,” Steve insisted.

Barton’s lips twitched again.

“Twenty-five hundred years of medical expertise says otherwise.”

“Isn’t Aristotle the one who first identified Omega hysteria?” Steve sneered. “The same Alpha who insisted Omegas only had twenty-four teeth - even though all he had to do was  _ look in his Omega’s mouth _ to prove himself wrong?”

Steve expected anger.

He expected disdain, or at least annoyance, or - something. Anything but what happened next.

Barton laughed, eyes crinkling and mouth open and  _ delighted _ .

Steve could even scent the slight change, the citrus note that twined with the Beta’s coffee musk.

“I like you,” Barton said as he wiped at his eyes. “You - you live to give ‘em hell, don’t you, Steve?”

Steve glared, sure he was being made fun of.

Barton shrugged, still smiling just a little, still so  _ pleased _ , that it was unsettling to Steve.

“You’re right, of course. Hysteria is bullshit. It’s just another way for Alphas - and Betas - to keep Omegas in tidy little boxes so they can hold all of the power in society.”

And Steve- 

“Am I dreaming all of this?” he had to ask.

“Nope. Hell, Steve, I very sincerely hope your dreams are better than this. No, I’m real. All of this is very, very real.”

“So if you think Hysteria is bullshit, why do you treat it?”

Barton sucked in a breath.

“Because if I don’t, Omegas like you get sent to prisons and asylums, or worse. Because Hysteria  _ is _ bullshit, but unmated Omegas of a certain age do have needs that have to be met so you don’t become a slave to your base instincts.”

“You mean so I learn to behave.”

“Hell, no. I don’t want to turn you into one of those simpering little Omegas waiting for marriage or sterilization. All I want to do is help… clear your mind. You’ve got a lot of anger, Steve, and I’m willing to bet you come by all of it rightfully. The world’s a shitty place for most people, and you’ve been dealt a crappier hand than most. All I want to do is help you control your body a bit better.”

“How?” Steve snarled. He didn’t like the word control, and especially didn’t like the mention of his own body, which had always felt like just another thing he had to fight against. As if the entire world wasn’t stacked against him already.

“When was your last heat?” Barton asked, and it felt like an abrupt change of subject.

“May,” Steve answered after a moment of looking into Barton’s too-friendly eyes.

Barton nodded.

“So you’re a few weeks away from your next heat? How regular are they?”

“Not at all,” Steve huffed. “Sometimes I get six a year, instead of just two. One year, I didn’t have any at all.”

Barton frowned.

“That’s… I’m sorry. Biology is a cruel mistress, especially for those of us who don’t like to follow her orders.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, Steve, biology would have  _ you _ eager to be filled with pups and baring your neck to any and every acceptable Alpha.”

The words, the  _ thought _ , the nightmare, had Steve hugging himself.

Barton nodded.

“Exactly. Just because biology and genetics structures our bodies a certain way, it doesn’t mean we have to like it, and it doesn’t mean we have to  _ follow _ it. Take me, for example.”

“You? You’re a Beta. What do you know about sex?”

Barton’s grin was a little sad, now.

“Ah, well, you see. Biology would have it that I know nothing about sex, right? I’m a Beta - can’t carry, can’t impregnate. And yet... “ Barton shrugged. “And yet, I want things biology says I shouldn’t, says I can’t.”

“So… what do you do?” Steve asked.

“I manage, and I dream. And I try to help people who are like me, in one way or another.”

Their eyes met again, held for a long, breathless moment.

“Well. I think maybe it’s time I told you a little bit about this, huh?” Barton gestured to the  _ thing _ .

Steve looked at it again, swallowed hard and nodded.

“This,” Barton said as he got to his feet and walked over to the exam table. Positioned at one end of the table was a thing, a kind of stand with an attachment that resembled… Well, it looked like an Alpha cock. Large, long and thick, with a rounded knot at the base where the attachment connected to the stand. “This is a fucking machine, Steve.”

Barton pressed a button, and the thing - the  _ machine _ \- started to move. Forward. Backward. Forward. Backward.

Over and over again, in a steady rhythm.

Barton met Steve’s gaze over the movement of the thing.

“This is the treatment,” Barton said. “This is… This will help.”

“Help me how?” Steve asked, and he flushed when he heard his own voice, how close to a whimper it sounded.

Between them, the machine continued its relentless movements.

“Denial isn’t always a bad thing,” Barton said, “but right now, you’ve got all of these biological urges you’re fighting against, all of these needs and desires, and this-” Barton gestured to the machine, “-this lets you fulfill those without losing who  _ you _ are, Steve. This isn’t going to mate you. It’s not going to mark you. It’s just going to release you.”

And that… that sounded like a hell of a thing.

“I… Okay. Okay,” Steve decided.

  
  


-o-

Listen, this isn’t me trying to untangle all of the bullshit of hysteria/Hysteria - so please don’t at me. If you want to talk about Victorian and Edwardian fucking machines and historical notions of hysteria then I am SO down to talk and have so many books to recommend. But this is just fiction and I’m not… advocating anything here.

* * *

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Do I want to expand on this and write a whole world where Bucky is an Alpha who wants to be penetrated instead of doing the penetration?
> 
> Do I want to write a polyamorous relationship between Steve and Bucky and Clint? Yes. Yes I really, really, really do.


End file.
